Image: The Ultimate Bird Drawing Throwdown Showdown Graphic featuring images of David Sibley and H. Jon Benjamin

Join BirdNote tomorrow, November 30th!

Illustrator David Sibley and actor H. Jon Benjamin will face off in the bird illustration battle of the century during BirdNote's Year-end Celebration and Auction!

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Shows With Contributions by Tenijah Hamilton

A small bird with warm gray plumage on head and back, with lighter gray on breast and belly. It has a short black beak and golden eye.

Tenijah’s Birding Journey Continues

Tenijah Hamilton, the host of the Bring Birds Back podcast, has learned a lot since she started birding at the start of the pandemic. She visited a park to show her mom how much she has grown. At first, the birds were sparse. Overcoming her frustration, Tenijah felt like nature was…
A graphic with the Bring Birds Back artwork on the right side, a headshot of Caroline Brewer in the top-left corner, and a photo of Steve Hampton in the bottom-left corner.

What's in a Name?

Names have power. In North America, more than 100 species of birds have eponymous names, many honoring white colonizers. The “Bird Names for Birds” movement to change these names, or “verbal statues,” can be traced to Ph.D candidate Robert Driver’s 2018 proposal about the Thick-billed…
A Red-eyed Vireo with soft pale gray breast, greenish yellow back and wings, and very dark red eye.

Sheridan Alford on Birding and Mental Health

Sheridan Alford helps organize Black Birders Week, which celebrates Black people who love birds with a week of interactive events. She’s passionate about the mental health benefits of birding, especially for people who have experienced trauma. Sheridan says that sitting and journaling…
A graphic with the Bring Birds Back artwork on the right side, a headshot of Julia Wang in the top-left corner, and a photo of Tenijah Hamilton looking through binoculars in the bottom-left corner.

Lights Out

Migratory birds use starlight to find their way on their long journeys — which makes light pollution a serious threat. Drawn off course by bright, artificial lighting, birds can wind up fatally colliding with windows or wasting precious time and energy that they need to survive. “Lights…
A graphic with the Bring Birds Back artwork on the right side, a headshot of Conor Gearin in the top-left corner, and a photo of Tenijah Hamilton looking through binoculars in the bottom-left corner.

The Bird Journey Continues!

Tenijah got hooked on birding at the start of the pandemic, and during the last season of Bring Birds Back she learned a lot about our feathered friends. This season, she’s ready to learn and share more simple ways to help birds — while discovering new birding skills from experts. After…
An illustration of Bring Birds Back host Tenijah Hamilton, smiling and holding binoculars in a city park setting, as birds fly over her.

Season Two Trailer

Last year, Tenijah Hamilton discovered her love of birds – and found out that birds are in trouble. On a mission to help bring birds back, Tenijah joined bird enthusiasts from different backgrounds, identities, and communities to learn and share simple, everyday actions people can take to…
Brown Pelican coming in for landing, wings outstretched.

Protecting the Pelicans

Tim Arnold leads the Tybee Clean Beach Volunteers in keeping Tybee Island, Georgia, free of plastic pollution and other trash. His favorite bird is the Brown Pelican. Its bulky, awkward appearance contrasts with its agility as it dives for fish. But Arnold worries that pelicans are…
Yellow-throated Toucan with black body, yellow throat and large long bill, sitting on a berried branch

Saving Birds, One Cup at a Time

Most coffee is grown industrially in wide-open fields with few places for birds and other species to live. But some farmers are returning to a more sustainable method, growing coffee under layers of natural tree canopy. The Smithsonian Institute certifies coffee as Bird Friendly if it…
Illustration of a Baltimore Oriole, Osprey and American Tree Sparrow flying over our host, Tenijah Hamilton, smiling and holding binoculars, against a background of trees and tall buildings

How Can We Protect Birds From Plastics?

In the Bring Birds Back season finale, host Tenijah Hamilton heads to Tybee Island off the Georgia coast for a day at the beach... picking up trash. She joins Tim Arnold, founder of Tybee Clean Beach Volunteers, to see firsthand how plastics and trash can pose a threat to migratory…
Illustration of a Baltimore Oriole, Osprey and American Tree Sparrow flying over our host, Tenijah Hamilton, smiling and holding binoculars, against a background of trees and tall buildings

How Can Coffee Help Birds?

Host Tenijah Hamilton hears firsthand from coffee grower Oswaldo Acevedo in Colombia how shade-grown coffee farms offer better wildlife habitat and working conditions than most industrial coffee plantations. She speaks to Ruth Bennett and Justine Bowe from the Smithsonian Institute…